


This Strange, Imperfect Shore

by OddlyExquisite



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance, Slow Burn, Slow Dancing, Tea-related flirting, The Author Regrets Nothing, mild historical inaccuracies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-05-26 22:38:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15010946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OddlyExquisite/pseuds/OddlyExquisite
Summary: There were days when Quinn would stand atop this lighthouse and look out into the rest of the world and feel, somewhere beneath his happiness and contentment, a sense of dissatisfaction with his lot in life. He would rest his elbows against the railing, exult in the brush of wind against his face, the press of cold metal against his forearms, the smell of damp and brine, and think:Is this all there is?





	1. A Return

**Author's Note:**

> 1) So many thank you's and Qui hugs to my indefatigable Beta, Merry_Amelie! She is so amazing, y'all.

* * *

 

If Quinn were a romantic, and he’d heartily deny that he was, he would say that he’d always known he was destined to live out the rest of his days in Cape Bonadan, caught somewhere between Portland and Wiscasset, fashioning a quiet life for himself on Maine’s rocky coast. At least, that’s the future his mother had seen for him, and as usual, she’d been right. Born into a line of immigrants who’d been lighthouse keepers back in Ireland, he’d resigned himself early to sharing the same fate as his forefathers: being born on land only to be buried at sea.

Cape Bonadan was a fishing town, tucked into a safe harbor that had been carved out of the North Atlantic bluffs millennia ago. The cliffs, and their inhabitants, stood unwavering against the constant drum of salt water and wind. There was something to be said about the kind of people who were willing to scrape at a muddy seabed for 14 hours a day and call it a living. Quinn had never done much fishing, but he was lumped in with the rest of that population by merit of sheer stubbornness.

Quinn shaded his eyes against the mid-morning sun and stared up at the lighthouse from the gabled porch of his grey-and-white clapboard home. The Roslyn Point Lighthouse commanded the majority of the headland it was named for. It towered sixty-eight feet above the roof of the two-story cottage below. Brilliant white against the azure sky, the lighthouse seemed to taper upward forever, its cupola trimmed in vivid red; a familiar and necessary beacon for the area’s sailors.

The longer Quinn looked the more disheartened he became. One of the stairwell windows had been cracked in last night’s storm, a few of the catwalk floorboards needed replacing, and the eastern portion of the tower needed a new coat of paint. That was only the lighthouse. The vegetable plot had come to resemble a weed garden interspersed with the occasional tomato or snap-pea plant, some of the treads on the wooden staircase down to the beach had started to rot. A dining-room chair needed a leg replaced, the lower-floor windows needed reglazing, and if he didn’t get someone to look at the septic soon, there would be a whole host of other issues he wasn’t prepared to deal with.

The screen door slammed behind him, jolting him from his musings. A jaunty man with blond hair and a USLHS regulation cap stepped out of the house, holding a canteen in one hand and buttered toast in the other.

“Mornin’, Galloway. You radioed in at dawn?”

Quinn nodded. “Feemor. Your shift until nightfall?”

“You got it,” the man replied cheerily. “Thal’ll keep an eye on that rooftop daredevil of yours.”

“What do you...ANI!”  
  
Feemor made a beeline for the lighthouse.

Quinn stepped off of the porch and frowned at the roof. He watched as a small, pale creature army-crawled its way across the red tile and waved its skinny arm in greeting when it saw him. Quinn resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. Shmi Skywalker’s son, Ani, was currently dragging his black metal telescope set to the roof with him, clutching the tripod stand close to his chest as he squirmed his way toward the rest of the pieces. A second head peeked out of the skylight soon after, revealing a woman in a collared shirt and blue denim overalls. She hauled herself onto the roof, quietly cursing as she crawled after Ani.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Thalia called down to him, gripping the roof tile for dear life, “you let your _godson_ up here?”

“Well,” Quinn said with the barest trace of resignation, “how else is he going to get a good look at those clouds?”

“I don’t know, follow you up into the lighthouse, maybe?”  

“Nope,” the blond-haired boy chirped happily, fiddling with the mount on his telescope. “I’m not allowed to the top. Not until I’m older.”

“At least it has railings,” Thal muttered, flinching at the sudden gust of wind.

“Looks like there’s no other solution,” Quinn said with a fond smile toward his sunburnt protégé, who beamed at him in return. “It’s a good thing you aren’t afraid of heights, Thal.”

The woman pried her left hand away from the roof long enough to send him a rude hand gesture when Ani wasn’t looking.  

Quinn chuckled and let his gaze sweep out to sea, confident that any ten-year-old shenanigans could be handled by his intrepid friend and technician extraordinaire, Thalia Marjani. She and Quinn had grown up together on the decks of fishing boats; their fathers had been good friends, so the fact that Thal and Quinn were inseparable at a young age went without saying. Things were a bit different now; Thal had been Quinn’s first kiss, his first teenage romance, and while it hadn’t worked out in the end, the sheer weight of years between them balanced out what awkwardness came with the realization that they worked better as friends. And when Thal had married Feemor? Well, she’d practically become family.

“I’ll be back in an hour or two,” he shouted to the pair on the roof.

Giving the lighthouse’s brick base a fond pat as he went by, Quinn shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and headed for Cape Bonadan proper.

*********

The bell to Whitesun General jingled as Quinn pushed his way into the store. A few lone customers milled about, loath to leave the cool interior for the humid summer air outside. Quinn breathed in the grain and pinewood smell of it all and felt the stiffness of his shoulders ease. Rows of jellies, breads, and canned goods lined one wall, while another displayed everything from matches to dishware and razors. A wood stove lay dormant in the corner, a few chairs scattered nearby with a small table for checkers. Jars of candy lined the register up front where a loud red sign advertised Coca-Cola. Behind the polished countertop, a woman with a generous face and a knot of dark hair busily wrapped a customer’s purchases. Quinn grabbed an order slip from the counter to fill out.

“I wasn’t expecting you today,” Shmi Lars said when she spotted him, her light brown eyes warm. “Come here, you big lug! How’s my son?”

The customer brushed by him with a murmur of apology. Quinn leaned up against the counter and gave Shmi a quick kiss on the cheek. “Busy staring at the sky instead of his schoolwork, scaling rooftops, generally getting into business he shouldn’t. The usual.” He handed her the order slip for the new window.

Shmi’s smile widened. “He loves Owen’s old telescope. Did he eat Beru’s birthday muffins?”

“Insatiably.”

“She’ll be happy to hear that. Thank you for looking after him, Quinn. Watching him during summers can be difficult when I’m working, and since Cliegg...well.” She clasped her hands together, as if unsure of what to do with them.

“It’s my pleasure,” Quinn replied soothingly, “he’s a hard worker. Did you want to join us for lunch today? Thal’s cooking.”

“Oh, I’d love to but we...I’ll be busy. Maybe another time.” Her smile was strained for a reason Quinn didn’t understand.

“It’s just...family business,” she said in answer to the silent question in his eyes. “Owen’s cousin is...he’s home.”

“From England?”

“From the war.” Shmi unconsciously smoothed a hand over the wrinkles in her apron. “And you?”

“Me?”

The dark-haired woman nodded toward the folded newspaper on the counter between them. “They posted your ad this morning,” she said, pulling an envelope off of a shelf behind her.

Quinn glanced at the headline, “June 17th 1940: GERMANY AND NORWAY AT WAR; NAZI ARMY INVADES DENMARK”, before flipping to the classifieds. Second from the top he spotted the ad he’d sent to the editor a few days ago.

**WANTED: Full-time, experienced housekeeper for Roslyn Lighthouse. Must know how to cook. Free room and board. Good wage. CB 3-8252.**

“It’s been a touch difficult since the reassignment,” Quinn conceded, taking a closer look at the paper. “It would be good to have another person around.”

A year ago the president’s reorganization order had consolidated the Lighthouse Service with the U.S. Coast Guard. The reorganization left civilian keepers with a few options: quit, continue their civilian keeper duties under the U.S. Lighthouse Society, or transfer to the Coast Guard and remain keeper under a new title. Roslyn’s second assistant keeper had taken the opportunity to leave the service to be with his newly pregnant wife. Quinn, however, had chosen to stay for reasons he didn’t feel needed explanation. His lateral transition into the Coast Guard had earned him the title Petty Officer, First Class, though he certainly didn’t pay his new rank (or its uniform) much mind. He preferred to use the title Head Keeper and continue wearing the same button-downs and faded trousers he’d always worn.

Though he’d never admit it to Shmi, he wasn’t getting any younger. There were a few more silver strands in his hair than last year, and there were some days where his knees ached too badly from the day’s work to stand while making dinner. If a housekeeper could minimize his workload? All the better.

“You could do with some company,” Shmi said, “maybe this year you’ll make it to the beach for-”

“Well,” Quinn said, “the lighthouse needs a good deal of maintenance.”

“But-”

“It’s fine.” Quinn rapped his knuckles on the countertop. “I should get back. Make sure Ani isn’t trying to free-climb the bluffs again.”

Shmi gave him a sharp look, but didn’t push. “Well, let us know about the housekeeper. I’ll ask around for you myself.”

“Thank you. Truly. Feemor will bring Ani back when he and Thal head home.”

“Tell him to remember the telescope!” the older woman called on his way out.

*********

It had been Shmi who’d taught Ani to love the stars, to love the bright, gaseous, out-of-reach-ness of them. It had been Shmi who’d taught Ani to place his hope in wishes made on the relentless expanse of the universe, in the waxing and waning of the moon, in the certainty of constellations. She’d taught that impossibilities and limits weren’t for people like him; that he was born to mimic the celestial bodies they stared at every night. With encouragement like that, how could Ani do anything except burn, burn, burn?

Quinn, however, had been taught to love the ebb and flow of the sea, to trust in its life-giving waters, the temperamental crash of foam against sand, the predictable volatility of an elemental force trapped by gravity. It was simply the nature of his family’s business; the consequences of loving a powerful entity. (Quinn wasn’t a religious man, but he figured that gods probably demanded a similar devotion.) His father had taught him about boundaries, about latitude and caution and the amount of time it takes a man to drown in an autumn storm. Quinn was a man of the present, better suited to living from one moment to another than looking at the cosmos and wondering what comes next.

Yet, as Quinn stood on the catwalk of the Roslyn lighthouse, he found himself wondering exactly that: _What comes next?_

His mother used to say that there were some people whose futures were cloudy and uncertain, and that he, with his clear-water, salt-and-slate fate, wasn’t one of them. Quinn, with his earthbound, straightforward honesty and knowingness of himself wasn’t a cosmic mystery. And he was fine with that, most days. He didn’t need to be a heavenly, luminous thing to have a purpose, to be happy.

 _What comes next?_  

But all the same, there were days when he’d stand atop this lighthouse and look out into the rest of the world and feel, somewhere beneath his happiness and contentment, a sense of dissatisfaction with his lot in life. He would rest his elbows against the railing, exult in the brush of wind against his face, the press of cold metal against his forearms, the smell of damp and brine, and think:

_Is this all there is?_

He hadn’t expected an answer, but that didn’t stop the lack of one from being disappointing. Quinn climbed inside the lighthouse and went to prepare for the night shift.

*********

“Ben...what is that?”

The question came on a sunny mid-June Tuesday in the guest room of Owen and Beru’s home. Shmi was manning the general store; Beru was visiting one of her church friends for lunch; Ani was helping out at Roslyn-- or at least, that’s what Shmi claimed. Owen could never be certain if “helping out” meant painting and holding tools for the keepers, or if it meant wandering off with bits and pieces of their machinery, because both happened frequently. Shmi might have initially persuaded Galloway to “apprentice” Ani to him, but Owen was at a loss to explain how she convinced him to continue the apprenticeship after the first few days. He knew that if he marched up to Galloway and asked, the man would just say, “He’s family,” in the firm, decisive way he always spoke and that would be that. He didn’t know who Galloway had bargained with for his legendary patience, or what he had given away, but he’d be willing to pay good money to find out. Family or not, Shmi’s kid was a handful; always doing things without asking permission.

Owen stared aghast at the man in front of him and wondered if that maddening trait ran in the family.

“It’s a Beretta. 1915,” Ben answered bemusedly, “Italian. Seven rounds.”

“A _gun_?”

“Startlingly observant of you. What gave it away?”

Owen frowned at the sardonic response. “We’re _fishermen_.”

“Oh? Between the bait and the netting I couldn’t tell,” Ben quipped.

Ben had come home mere weeks before, arriving on the eight o’clock train in his government-issue aviator’s jacket and wire-rim glasses. (Which was strange, Owen mused, because flight training required perfect vision.) They’d thought he was the same old Ben that had left Cape Bonadan as a young man; he looked the same, mostly. His red-blond hair was longer than it had been when he’d left, and he’d grown a beard. But slowly, very slowly, Owen and Shmi had come to realize that there were other differences about the man: things like the way he would carry himself when he walked, the way he spoke, the way he stood in a crowded room. There were other things, other details too small for anyone but family to perceive. His passport was full of unfamiliar names; he was tanner now, like he’d spent hours out in the sun in a place that probably, they now realized, hadn’t been England at all. Most of the details were fairly harmless, except for the knife he kept hidden in his right boot, the small notebook he carried with him at all times, and that pistol he kept in his bedside drawer.

(One day, late at night when Ben had been sleeping, Owen had crept into his room, opened his closet door, and snuck the notebook from his jacket pocket. Inside, Ben had kept lists. Most of them were innocuous items you’d find in the grocery: sugar, eggs, flour, oil. Others were names: John, Beth, Gabe, Lisette. Still others were places: Dorset, I. of Wight, Kent, Lydd. Owen had put the notebook back and hadn’t brought it up when Ben arrived at breakfast the next morning, rumpled and bleary-eyed in his flannel pajamas.)

Ben had secrets, now. Owen wasn’t certain if that was a consequence of war or not, having never seen warfare himself. Maybe everyone came back with secrets. Maybe everyone came back with lists. Maybe everyone came back with an Italian pistol hidden near the bed.

“You won’t be needing it,” Owen said firmly, ignoring the weak attempt at humor, “not here.”

“Well, that’s what we said at the Treaty of Versailles,” Ben said, shoving the pistol into his travel bag, “and look where that got us.”

“Your discharge papers-”

“What about them?”

Owen hesitated.

“What _about_ them?” Ben repeated.  

Owen relented with a sigh and placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Listen, just be careful. I worry about you, you know.”

Ben’s expression softened. “I know. You worry about everything.”

“I’m getting better. Making improvements.” Owen stepped away and cleared his throat. “So, Shmi said you’d be helping out in the shop?”

The smaller man shrugged noncommittally. “Unless something else catches my eye. Wouldn’t want to bother your mother.”

“Please,” Owen rolled his eyes, “you were always her favorite.”

“I know. Let’s grab some lunch, old man.”

“Lead the way, kiddo.”

*****

  



	2. Merry Meet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) First and foremost, bushels and bushels of thank you's to my Beta, Merry_Amelie! She is so dedicated, and because of that, she stayed up quite late to edit my chapter. You're the best, Merry!
> 
> 2) When I tagged for "Minor Historical Inaccuracies", I was mostly tagging for the man-buns. Sorry not sorry.
> 
> 3) Written mostly to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F30G87zlRPw

* * *

 

 

It had been a week after his initial posting in the local paper, but Quinn had yet to hear from any potential applicants. The phone had rung only a few times in the past five days, and each time it had either been Shmi, calling to check on Ani, or Old Jabba from the sanitation service, wondering if he could postpone the septic cleaning a third time (to which Quinn said a firm _no_ ). He didn’t want the housekeeper’s first week to be a study in sewage.

It hadn’t been all bad: early in the week Mrs. Canevari had stopped by with some leftover banana bread from the town festival, gleefully showing off her first-place ribbon and the newspaper article that had accompanied her victory. Quinn had only half-listened to her chatter, more focused on the article entitled ‘WARTIME HERO RETURNS HOME’. There was a photo of a bemused young man, whom Quinn could only guess was Ben Kenobi, standing next to the mayor, Bail Organa.

“Dunno what to tell you, Qui,” Thal said, passing the string beans down the table. “Not many women want to be stuck in a lighthouse while their husbands are off at war. They want to be nurses.”

“Or factory girls,” Feemor added, cutting into his salmon. “They have families. They can’t afford to spend months on duty at Roslyn.”

Evening meals were a casual affair at the Galloway household. When he was alone, Quinn ate his dinner in the lighthouse, but whenever Ani and Feemor joined him, they would gather around the sizable elm table in the dining room, and serve themselves family-style. On the days when Thal was working for her family’s company, she would arrive a few minutes late, windblown and hunched over whatever side-dish she’d rushed to make before setting out for Roslyn. Ani would set pieces of metal and twine next to his plate, Feemor would invariably take up one side of the table on his own, and Quinn would sit across from his godson. The rest of the table and its accompanying empty seats were usually occupied by a combination of Quinn’s most recently acquired books, stray houseplants, and the detritus that Ani inevitably left behind after every visit.  

“If I had to choose between bedpans and sponge baths or waking up to the sea every morning,” Quinn argued, pointing his fork at the couple next to him, “I would choose the sea.”

“Bedpans and sponge baths pay better,” Thal said.

“Mom met Cliegg when she worked at the hospital,” Ani chimed in. “She helped out the doctors.”

“Really? Why’d she stop?” Feemor asked curiously.

The sandy-haired boy shrugged, engrossed with winding the rubber band propeller of his popsicle-stick helicopter. “Too many body fluids.” The rubber band snapped.

“Sorry I asked.”

“Not to continue this line of thought,” Thal said, “but when are you going to get the septic cleaned? I’m not looking forward to another clogged-”

“Thursday,” Quinn interrupted. “In the afternoon.”

“ _Late_ afternoon?” She leveled a significant look at him.

“God, I hope it’s late afternoon,” Feemor grumbled. “You remember what it smelled like last time, Ani?”

“It smelled like a bunch of dead squirrels,” Ani replied, “if a squid killed the squirrels and died on top of them.”

“During _lunch_ ,” Feemor added pointedly.

Thal made a choked-off sound around a mouthful of beans.

Quinn rolled his eyes heavenward. “Thank you, Ani, for that bracing assessment.”

“Welcome,” the boy muttered, trying to replace the broken rubber band.

The meal and conversation continued well into the evening, as it often did on these lazy summer days. Feemor did dishes while Thal and Quinn reminisced over the dregs of their after-dinner drinks. Ani dozed in his chair, his face smooshed into the table. The makeshift helicopter had fallen from his loose grip into his lap. Eventually, when the purple-orange of the sunset sky dissolved into darkness, Feemor roused himself from the silent contemplation that had fallen over the table. He leaned over to give Thal a kiss and went to get their coats, a wordless signal that it was time to head home. Quinn stacked their cups in the sink and watched with fond eyes as Thal gently woke Ani and helped the boy into his coat. Several quiet goodbyes later, Quinn was left alone in his dining room, no company but his houseplants and the cool night air flowing through his windows.

He meandered about the house for a few minutes, straightening this, moving that, and thinking half-formed thoughts about tomorrow. He inspected the lantern room in the lighthouse, set his alarm for the midnight check, and brewed his nightly cup of tea-- a blackberry and sage blend. This was his favorite time of night: the half-light of a clouded moon an hour after sunset. Specific, certainly, but Quinn was a man who knew what he liked, and at this particular hour, he preferred his slippers to his work boots, a cup of warm tea in his hand, and solitude.

Quinn sat at the edge of his bed and stared out his window, shucking his slippers so that he could feel the soft carpet beneath his bare feet. His window overlooked the rest of Cape Bonadan, which, from this distance, looked like nothing more than a cluster of smudged shapes and fairy lights. Moored boats creaked against their bindings. Cicadas chirped beneath the white noise of the waves, occasionally drowned out by the hooting of an owl in a nearby pine tree. There was something soothing, Quinn mused, about the knowledge that he was one of the last people awake. It was comforting, knowing that all along Maine’s coast there were keepers readying themselves for sleep, keeping vigil the same way he did.

It felt fitting; it always had.

*********

“Pass me those nails, will you?” Feemor stuck his arm through the window into the lantern room where Quinn was busy cleaning the glass fresnel lens with nothing more than a soft cloth and elbow grease.

Quinn rifled through the tools. “The 316 steel or...?”

“Yep. Ring shank.”

He slapped the box of nails into Feemor’s waiting palm.

Cape Bonadan was a humid 87 degrees and even hotter at the top of the lighthouse. It was only the occasional afternoon breeze that made their jobs bearable. Feemor was on his hands and knees, sweating through his shirt while fixing a few feet of the catwalk, the back of his neck growing more and more red as the noon hour crawled by. Quinn, inside the lantern room, had rolled his sleeves and tied his long greying hair into a knot at the nape of his neck, but it wasn’t making much of a difference. He swiped impatiently at the sweat beading on his forehead and begrudgingly moved on to polishing the next facet of the lens.

It wasn’t the heat alone that was contributing to his sour mood: the District Office had phoned that morning to upbraid Quinn about a purchase on last month’s expense report. A bundle of hardwood planks had sparked an eight-minute lecture and the threat of an early evaluation.

“Penny-pinching bastards,” Quinn had groused to his assistant when the conversation was over. “Did they expect us to fell the damn tree ourselves?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Feemor had said. “When they fall through the catwalk during inspection, it’ll be a moot point anyway.”

“Murder, Feemor?”

“Not if it looks like an accident,” Feemor had deadpanned, setting off one of Quinn’s rare grins.

However undeserved the scolding, homicide would have been too bold a career move for Quinn, not that his career could do much shifting at this point. So despite the indignity of the rebuke, Feemor had quietly gone forward with the catwalk renovation.  

They worked for the most part in a comfortable silence. Quinn had known the younger man’s family for most of his life, having been apprenticed to Feemor’s father during his teenage years. Before the man had passed away, there’d been no finer carpenter in town. Nowadays, Feemor had taken up his father’s mantle, woodworking when he wasn’t on duty at Roslyn.

“We have a visitor,” Feemor called out suddenly. “Car looks familiar.”

Quinn stretched his lower back with a relieved groan and dropped his cleaning supplies. “I’ll go down. Shmi said she’d deliver the new window today. Think you’ll be done soon?”

Feemor grumbled something indecipherable.

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Don’t fall.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Feemor muttered from somewhere beneath the window.

Outside, Quinn was greeted by the sight of Owen’s 1937 Ford pickup, its black exterior gleaming like the shell of some great mechanical beetle. It was Owen’s pride and joy, and one of the newest models in town. He doted on the truck as if it were his own blood. Quinn walked over, fully expecting to see Owen’s stocky frame exit the driver’s side of the car instead of the slim figure that actually climbed out. A copper-haired man approached him, clad in a brown leather jacket and boots that the keeper quickly identified as being of military make. He had the same pair in his closet, not that he’d ever bothered with them. A quick movement in the passenger’s side of the car revealed Ani, sandwich in one hand, wooden plane in the other. The boy rolled the airplane across the dashboard, blissfully unaware of the world outside.

“Hello there!” the stranger said, extending a hand in greeting. “I’m looking for Quinn Galloway?”

“You’ve found him,” Quinn replied, all but engulfing the man’s slender hand in his callused grip. “And you are...?”

“Ben. Ben Kenobi.”

“Ah, the cousin from England. How on earth did you convince Owen to allow Ani inside of his...”

“Truck?” Ben offered helpfully.

“...metal monstrosity,” Quinn corrected.

Ben’s eyes twinkled. “I’m afraid that’s top-secret information, Mr. Galloway.”

The gentle humor hit Quinn full in the chest, where something warm began to bloom. Up close, Quinn could see the stubble of a three-day-old beard and the bright green of Ben’s eyes, the same color as as shoal water on a good day. Quinn had only ever heard of the Kenobis from a few brief interactions over the years. They were a wealthy family-- old New England wealthy-- who lived on the western edge of town, their sprawling Victorian-style mansion a startling contrast to the smaller colonial and saltbox houses that surrounded it. They were known for their copper-haired, sea-eyed children, nearly all of them naval architects or oceanographers of some kind. Ben didn’t seem to fit that profile exactly, but Quinn wasn’t about to ask him about it, or why he hadn’t been staying with his own family since returning from the war.

“I brought your window,” Ben said, pulling Quinn back to the present. He gestured to the well-wrapped package that had been secured in back. “Shmi wanted you to look it over before you paid.”

“Thoughtful of her.” Quinn began digging through the various layers of insulation to make sure that this was, indeed, the 6-over-6 double-hung window he’d ordered. “How are you finding it, being back home?”

Ben gave him a tight smile and helped Quinn carry the heavy parcel to the base of the lighthouse. “The same way I left it: a bit too quiet, and somehow not quiet enough.”

“I take it you weren’t a fan of your front-page exposition in the Bonadan Gazette?”

“Nonsense. It was an honor to be featured next to Mrs. Canevari’s prize-winning banana bread. She offered me a piece after the photo shoot.”

“There are benefits to celebrity,” Quinn said with a chuckle. “And to think you would’ve missed all this fame if you’d stayed in England.”

Ben looked at him for a beat too long. “I didn’t.”

“Clearly.”

“No, I...I didn’t _stay_ in England. I was in the British Air Force,” Ben said, running his fingers along the gritty lines of mortar that fused the tower’s bricks together. “Dual citizenship, and all that. I travelled.”

Maybe that explained the man’s odd, posh articulation, Quinn thought. Ben spoke the Queen’s English as if he still held onto the transatlantic nightmare of an accent he’d most likely been taught in whatever upper-crust prep school his family had sent him to.

“GALLOWAY!”

The keeper in question shaded his eyes and looked up to see Feemor leaning out of a window halfway down the tower.

“WHERE’D YOU PUT THE SANDER?”

“I’ll...you should get back to work,” Ben said, a veil of polite detachment coming over his entire person as propriety took hold. He took a step toward the truck. “Shmi will take the payment for the window when you’re next in town.”

“Of course,” Quinn replied easily. “Thank you for bringing it by.”

Ben gave him one more small smile and made his way to Owen’s ‘metal monstrosity’.

“GALLOWAY!”

“Jesus Chri-- JUST A MINUTE!”

*********

It took Ben Kenobi less than 24 hours to show up at Roslyn with only his determination and a worn trunk of luggage in tow. (Later, Ben would remark upon how easy it had all been; how easy, to ask for shelter and by some miracle receive it. Easy, like a soft sea, like toy airplanes, like strands of silver wound in bronze hair.) It was a short trek to the lighthouse, only a mile outside of town. The tower showed him the way, looming above even the tallest evergreens in the coniferous forest that bordered the point; a lofty beacon, both bright and foreboding against the grey afternoon sky.

It was a Friday and Feemor was off-duty for the weekend. Quinn was busily watering the ferns he’d left in the shade of the sitting room when he heard a series of quick knocks on his front door.

Watering can in hand, Quinn opened the door and was greeted by the sight of Ben Kenobi on the porch, dressed to the nines in suspenders and a crisp white button-down that had somehow remained spotless in the humidity. Quinn’s gaze lingered longer than was polite, and he felt his cheeks warm when he met Ben’s eyes. Thankfully, Ben looked equally surprised to see the older man, despite knowing perfectly well who would be coming to the door. A strange, inscrutable look flitted across his face when he noticed the watering can in Quinn’s grasp.

“Ben,” Quinn said, breaking the awkward silence, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Mr. Galloway,” Ben said in that posh accent that was uniquely his. _Mis_ ter Galloway. “It’s a work call, I’m afraid.”

“The order came in already?” Quinn squinted into the front yard, as if expecting to see it on the lawn.

“Another order?” Ben looked at him in puzzlement and Quinn very objectively noted the endearing worry line between his brows.

“Yes,” Quinn said, “Shmi said it would be a week at least before--”

“I’m not here about your work order, Mr. Galloway.” Ben held out the scrap of paper he’d been unconsciously folding and unfolding during their discussion. “I’m here to apply for the job.”

It took Quinn several seconds of staring at his own newspaper ad before he understood exactly what the wealthy scion of one of New England’s oldest families was saying. “You want...to be my housekeeper?”

“Yes?” Ben said uncertainly, a flicker of worry crossing his face at Quinn’s tone. “Is that a problem?”

“You were just discharged from…” Quinn hesitated as the furrow in Ben’s forehead deepened. There were only a few reasons why the military would discharge a physically capable soldier when the world stood on the eve of all-out war. 

“ _Honorably_ ,” Ben replied sharply. “I was discharged _honorably_ , Mr. Galloway.”

“I wasn’t saying…I’m not sure you’ll enjoy the--”

“The work?” the younger man interrupted. “As opposed to how much I enjoyed piloting bombers into the middle of enemy territory?”

“I’m sorry, Ben, I didn’t mean to…” Quinn closed his eyes briefly before placing the watering can and the crinkled newspaper ad on the table by the door. “Do you smoke?”

“No.”

“Drink?”

“Yes, if you're offering.”

Quinn huffed a quiet laugh; charmed in spite of himself, he stepped to the side, motioning Ben and his patched suitcase inside. “Then help yourself.”

“That’s it?” Ben asked with raised eyebrows. “No interview?”

“No need,” Quinn answered. “And if you’re going to be living with me, you may as well call me by my name.”

A slow, brilliant smile spread across Ben’s face, wrinkling the corners of his eyes. “Quinn, then.”

“Are you sure,” Quinn demanded, Thal’s previous advice ringing in his head, “that you wouldn’t rather find work in the factories? Or at the hospital?”

“Give sponge baths for a living?” Ben replied with faint horror. “When I could wake up by the sea instead?”  

Quinn stood in stunned silence for a few moments and privately decided that Ben Kenobi, the new housekeeper, would be a welcome addition to family dinners.

 

*****

**Author's Note:**

> Visit my Tumblr trashcan! (oddlyexquisite)


End file.
